Monthly Archives: November 2015

When I think of the 4th of July weekend coming up, I think of hotdogs, burgers, grills, the sun out, frozen fruit drinks and most importantly, some very needed family time.

Needless to say, I know there are people out there that fear this time of year and many other holidays like this centered around family gatherings and food (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Birthdays, and the like). They fear the idea of having to eat in front of family and friends. There are people tormented by the thought of having to force themselves to eat to appear healthy and normal on the outside.

The truth is, anorexia is hardly ever about weight. It doesn’t matter if you’re 80 pounds or 180 pounds, an anorexic will still feel that they are never at their perfect weight. Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and other related eating disorders are a form of addiction, very similar in root to gambling, alcoholism, drugs, smoking, sex, etc. – it is centered around attaining the ‘high’ that makes you feel good/relieved.

Young girls and boys on the onset of anorexia and bulimia purge because of how amazing it makes them feel afterwards. Fast forward a few years, it turns into a habit, an addiction no longer controllable. The troubling truth about habit is its stronghold over our lives. It’s great that some of us have great habits, like waking up early in the morning and sticking to our awesome workout regimes but there are a lot of us who fight head on with daily negative habits. Sometimes we turn to our addictions to distract us from the real issue we are dealing with on the inside.

Anorexia, like all other addictions, takes your good qualities and uses them against yourself in destructive ways. It will take your amazing persistence and push you to continue to purge and starve. It will take your strong determination and use it to push to to achieve visible ribcages. It will take your unique creativity and use it to create stories to hide the real reason as to why you are “not hungry”. It will take your hardworking, disciplined mindset and use it to fight for the wrong things.

I want to emphasize the power of our brains and what we can do change the way we think. Hypnosis can help you center your thoughts on what is truly important and meaningful in life. You have to realize that your body, your organs, and your actions/habits are all controlled by your brain. Your heart cannot beat and pump blood without the command of the brain. Likewise, your thoughts don’t end up where they do without the command of the brain. Come see me. And I don’t say this lightly. I know how real the fear is for those that battle with this every day, through every meal.

Can’t turn your brain off at night? Can’t seem to stop worrying the night away? The more you worry over the fact that you can’t seem to fall asleep, the more you won’t be able to sleep. It’s funny how the brain works but like all other things in life, the more you focus on an ‘issue’ the bigger it seems to get and the more it starts to cloud and take over your mind, clicking your brain gears to stay focused and obsessed over that one ‘issue’ (could pertain to your fears, your addiction, your negative memories, etc.).

CDC reports that 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from insomnia. It’s become such a widespread issue that March 9th has become “National Insomnia Awareness Day”. In the past, many turned to prescribed medication to help soothe their restless nights but you have to trust me on this, medication is not the best answer. Hypnosis can help you fall asleep faster every night and it can help you fall asleep more quickly after waking up during the night.

Insomnia can be tackled with just two simple things: hypnosis and lifestyle changes. Many clients that come to see me tend to have anxiety or depression that ties into their reason for insomnia while the other handful have unbalanced eating and drinking habits that prevent that from having a good nights sleep.

There are many dangers to insomnia that people overlook and take lightly. Insomnia not only leads to anxiety, depression, headaches, arthritis, and in serious cases heart attacks, but it also causes serious cognitive impairment. It leads to deterioration to an individuals attention span and memory bank (your ability to recall events, places, details and emotions). These are serious long term effects that should be addressed through hypnotherapy.

Addiction has the power to take root in your brain and branch out, affecting all aspects of your life (your relationships, your daily choices, your daily functions, your daily mood, and the list goes on). What I mean by this is, once you become addicted, or in other words, dependent on a substance, person, action, thing, etc., to gratify your needs, you are no longer in control of what is best for you. When you become dependent on a personal addiction, be it drugs, alcohol, sex, exercise, gambling, cosmetic surgery, food, etc., your brain is no longer able to freely exercise life’s most profound gift, the gift of free will.

In the case of drug addictions, drugs cause large amounts of dopamine (the happy hormone) to be released into your brain in areas that foster motivation, judgment, rational decision making, and self control. When such large amounts are released, your brain learns to adapt. Thus, as a result, the brain becomes less sensitive to the smaller amounts of dopamine that is naturally released when your are happy, rewarded, excited, etc. When this happens, all of life’s healthy releases of the dopamine are no longer enough to keep a person motivated.

I see clients all the time that blame themselves for where they are in the course of their life. There is no addiction that Clinical Hypnosis can’t cure. People have to understand that once a person is addicted, they can’t help but to feel that they are no longer in control of their actions. They repeatedly tell themselves that they need what they are addicted to in order to function. Your body functions the way your brain speaks to it. With Clinical Hypnosis, I work with clients to re-orient their way of thought. Call me at (212) 599-3195 to book an appointment (I offer a free 5-10 min consultation) and we’ll work through it.

In the same way that there are two sides to every story, two sides to any coin, there are two sides to stress.

There is the dark side that we are all familiar with: the distressful, painful anxiety that overwhelms us, making us emotionally paralyzed inside and out.

And then there is the bright side: the healthy motivational conviction that pushes us to perform at our best competitive level.

Stress in inevitable because we are all born with emotions and feelings, despite the varying discrepancy between individuals. With proper resources, stress can be used to our advantage. Stress is a natural response to the situations that occur all around us. Controlling the level of stress we choose to put ourselves under depends heavily on our mental habits, our mental view point.

We can look at the cup half full or we can look at the cup half empty.

We have to remember that stress is a byproduct of our pursuing in what we are passionate about. More often than not, we do not “stress” over things that do not matter to us. By viewing stress as an opportunity, we can change the way we live our lives. I’ve come across many people that have had trouble coping with stress and anxiety but in reality, there is nothing more rewarding than helping people find their silver lining.

When I was thirteen, I took my first job developing x-rays at a local hospital. It was then that I came across an x-ray of a baby that was born with both male and female sexual parts. The child’s parents were told to make a decision, evidently choosing the fate of their child’s future. Thereafter, I learned that one in every thirteen babies are born with signs of both genders.

Caitlyn, born Bruce Jenner, is the ultimate Olympian and champion. She was a hero then and is a greater heroine today. We are all born into bodies that belong to us – not to the world. We are all born to be uniquely different – not obliged to conform to who the world tells us to be. We are all entitled to our own form of happiness regardless of whether or not the world shares or understands it.

You need to be who you are.

Let me reiterate: you need to be you are really are. You will never be happy being someone else because you will never be good at being someone else as good as you could be being yourself.

I sit here genuinely happy for Caitlyn, for having overcome her fear and for having been so brave in moving forward with her life. Welcome to your new chapter in life.

I’ve come across a gamut of clients in the past 38 years of working in this field of hypnotherapy, hypnosis, and life coaching and I must say that fear has got to be one of the more extreme life debilitating issues people face. Fear of what the world thinks, fear of judgement, fear of acceptance and fear of being honest about what you want and who you want to be keep people bottled up as they slowly suffocate themselves into misery.Reading and witnessing Caitlyn’s entrance into this world in this day and age is a breath of fresh air. For anyone who knows there’s something more for them out there but can’t quite grasp what and who that person is, come see me and we will meet him or her together. Let me tell you, there’s more of you to be found.